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Films

Let's Get Lost

USA/1988—directed by Bruce Weber | 120 min.Let’s Get Lost is the most seductive jazz documentary ever made—and now even more captivating in this 4K restoration. Directed by photographer-turned-filmmaker Bruce Weber, the film chronicles the enigmatic jazz vocalist and trumpeter Chet Baker during what would become the final year of his life. With breathtaking black-and-white cinematography, Weber weaves rare performance footage with intimate interviews featuring Baker, his bandmates, children, and ex-wives. The result is a hauntingly beautiful portrait of a complicated artist and the cool, bittersweet romance of his music.“Magical. Weber's visual intuitions are as lyrical as Baker's musical instincts.” –Pauline Kael, 5001 Nights at the Movies

Guest Artist Workshop - Born to Remix with Jonathan Kimble

This workshop will explore hip-hop's method of production, the remix, by translating it into visual expression through the creation of stylized, vibrant portraits using unconventional mediums and techniques.Detroit native Jonathan Kimble (b. 1997), a BFA graduate from the College for Creative Studies (2020), is a fine artist, art collector, muralist, and mentor. His work captures the chaotic yet harmonious complexities of the human soul. Kimble's style is characterized by expressive shapes and mark-making through mixed media. He has exhibited at notable galleries in the metro Detroit area, including MOCAD (Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit), Detroit Historical Museum, Liberal Arts Gallery, and the Baltimore Gallery, and has been featured in multiple local art showcases and auctions. This program is made possible by the PNC Foundation

Activities

Drop-in Workshop: Collage Portraits

Use fabric, paper, and other materials ,to create a unique collage portrait influenced by artists in the DIA collection like Benny Andrews, Betye Saar, and Mickalene Thomas.

Pop-up Portrait Studio

Kick off the winter holiday season with a family portrait at the DIA! Photography students from Inside Southwest Detroit and Documenting DETROIT—nonprofits dedicated to empowering communities to authentically and ethically document their own stories—invite you to enjoy a studio portrait session. Discover your perfect pose with dramatic lighting that helps tell your unique story.Participants will receive a complimentary 5x7 print of their portrait, while supplies last.

Noel Night 2024

Noel Night is a festive open house in Midtown Detroit and the Cultural Center districts, showcasing a variety of holiday traditions at Michigan's premier arts institutions, historic churches, galleries, and small businesses. It offers an evening filled with performances and holiday experiences for all ages—completely free.The Detroit Institute of Arts (DIA) will participate in the festivities from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. with engaging activities for visitors:DIA Indoor Events:Pop-Up Portrait Studio with Inside Southwest Detroit and Documenting DETROIT (Great Hall, 2.– 4 p.m., free)Santa Photos (Great Hall, 11 a.m. – 3:30 p.m., free)Drop-In Workshop: Luminaries (12 – 4 p.m., free)Violin Divas Performance (Lecture Hall, 4 – 4:45 p.m., free)Sean Blackman Trio (Lecture Hall, 2:30 – 3:15 p.m. free)Detroit Film Theatre Screening of Flow (3 p.m. & 7 p.m., ticketed)Outdoor Events (Woodward Plaza & Lawn):These activities will continue after the DIA closes at 5:00 p.m.Ice Sculpting (3 p.m.–9 p.m.)Salvation Army Sing-Along (8 p.m.–9 p.m.)For more details, visit Noel Night's official website.

Films

Burden of Dreams

(USA/1982—directed by Les Blank)Werner Herzog was already a legend by 1982 when Fitzcarraldo, his magnum opus, was finally released. The film tells the story of a visionary adventurer, played by Klaus Kinski, who is obsessed with bringing an opera house to the Amazon for a performance by Caruso. The film was shot on location over four years, including a dramatic scene where a 320-ton steamship is actually hauled over a mountain—one of many production challenges that drove Herzog to the brink of insanity.Burden of Dreams is Les Blank’s classic behind-the-scenes documentary about Herzog’s monumental effort to complete Fitzcarraldo. As a portrait of unrelenting artistic obsession, this documentary's impact may surpass that of the film it chronicles. Newly restored in 4K resolution, Burden of Dreams returns to the big screen in the way it truly deserves. (95 minutes)“One of the most candid and fascinating portraits ever made of a director at work.” –Vincent Canby, The New York Times

Films

The World According to Allee Willis

(USA/2024—directed by Alexis Manya Spraic)Songwriter and artist Allee Willis began filming her life as a child in 1950s Detroit and never stopped. Her recordings of herself, her family, and her career form the backbone of this vibrant, entertaining documentary portrait. Brilliant and tireless, Willis fed her curiosity about music by sitting outside Motown Studios on Grand Blvd and listening to recording sessions through the walls.She soon wrote iconic songs like “September” and “Boogie Wonderland” for Earth, Wind & Fire, and the “Friends” theme “I’ll Be There for You,” all while grappling with her anxiety about fitting established gender and sexual norms. The film features friends celebrating their love for Allee, including Lily Tomlin, Paul Reubens, Mark Cuban, Cyndi Lauper, and many more. A joy from beginning to end. (97 minutes)“A fascinating documentary honoring a creative force of nature. Energetic, colorful and invigorating.” –Jourdain Searles, The Hollywood Reporter 

Community Events

Detroit Jewish Bookfair: A Conversation with Jean Strouse

American biographer, Jean Strouse, author of Family Romance: John Singer Sargent and the Wertheimers, captures the dramas, mysteries, intrigues, and tragedies surrounding John Singer Sargent's portraits of the Wertheimer family. Strouse will be looking at twelve portraits of one English family painted by the expatriate American artist (Sargent) at the height of his career—and at the intersections of all these lives with the sparkle and strife of the Edwardian age. The author will be joined in conversation with Ben Colman, DIA Curator of American Art.Following the presentation, please join a DIA docent-led tour of works by John Singer Sargent.

Drop in Workshop: Oil Pastel Portraits

Inspired by works in the collection including Vincent van Gogh's 1887 Self-Portrait, stop by the DIA Art-Making studio to create your own portrait using oil pastels!

Drop-in Workshop: Wearable Wire Sculpture

Find inspiration in the galleries, then head to the Artmaking Studio and create your own sculpture using colorful wire. Make a portrait, an animal, or a unique creation of your own to hang on the wall or in the window. You can even make something to wear!

Workshops

Guest Artist Workshop: Creative Compositions with Elonte Davis

Join Detroit photographer Elonte Davis as he shares techniques and inspirations from his work.All participants will also create a polaroid portrait mixed media collage using a variety of artmaking materials like decorative papers, magazines, paint markers, and more. This program is made possible by the PNC Foundation.

Workshops

Drop In Workshop: Mixed Media Pet Portraits

Use a variety of drawing and collage materials to create a portrait of your favorite pet or animal!

Films

Terrestrial Verses

Iran/2023—directed by Ali Asgari and Alireza Khatami | 77 min. Through a series of stirring vignettes, often humorous and always affecting, Iranian directors Asgari and Khatami follow people from all walks of life in contemporary Tehran. As they navigate cultural, religious, and institutional constraints, this audacious film captures the spirit and determination of people facing daily adversity, while offering a nuanced portrait of a complex society. The sole Iranian film selected by the Cannes Film Festival in 2023, it was also a London, Chicago and AFI Film Festival selection. In Persian with English subtitles. “One of the most brilliant and provocative films to emerge from Iran in recent years.” —Godfrey Cheshire, rogerebert.com  

FMCA Annual Meeting & Artist Lecture by María Magdalena Campos-Pons

Please join the Friends of Modern and Contemporary Art for our Annual Meeting from 5:30–6 p.m.   At 6 p.m., guest artist María Magdalena Campos-Pons will give a lecture on her work, which is free with registration. The lecture will be followed by an exclusive FMCA Member reception in FJC Dining Rooms A&B. María Magdalena Campos-Pons combines and crosses diverse artistic practices, including photography, painting, sculpture, film, video, and performance. Her work addresses issues of history, memory, gender, and religion; it investigates how each one of these themes informs identity formation. Campos-Pons was born in 1959 in Cuba and resides in Nashville, Tennessee. She has served as Vanderbilt Chair Professor of Fine Arts at Vanderbilt University since 2017. Campos-Pons has had solo exhibitions at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Indianapolis Museum of Art, and the National Gallery of Canada. Behold, a survey of her work spanning four decades, is currently on tour at the Brooklyn Museum, the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University, the Frist Art Museum in Nashville, and the J. Paul Getty Museum at the Getty Center in Los Angeles, closing May 4, 2025. She has presented over thirty solo performances commissioned by institutions that include the Guggenheim Museum and the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery. Her works are held in more than thirty museum collections, including the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; the Art Institute of Chicago; the Museum of Modern Art, New York; and the Detroit Institute of Arts. In 2023, Campos-Pons was awarded the prestigious MacArthur “Genius Grant” Fellowship for exploring personal and collective histories across the Caribbean with a distinctive and expansive visual style. She is also a member of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences. Campos-Pons has founded or co-founded several non-profit arts organizations including the Intermittent Rivers, a Biennial Project in Matanzas, Cuba; the Engine for Art Democracy and Justice at Vanderbilt with Vanderbilt and Fisk University; and When We Gather, a multi-faceted art project celebrating the elemental role women have played in the United States. The Detroit Institute of Arts acquired Campos-Pons’s work Soy una Fuente (I Am a Fountain) in 2023. Photo courtesy of the artist.